Had there ever been any shadow of a division between Evie and myself, which there had not, it must have vanished now. I did not attempt to conceal from myself that her gifts did not extend in all directions equally. Socially expert in Pepper's sense, for example, she could hardly yet be expected to be, and I should have been unreasonable to have reproached her for not grasping the intricate problems that, if the truth must be told, frequently filled Pepper and myself with perplexity. But these things are independent of deep humanity, and by as much as she fell short in them she was richly dowered in other ways. It was still the love of a woman I wanted, not the semblance of a masculine friendship; and I had it, and was glad at the thought of my rich possession. Often, for pure emotion, I caught her in my arms when I saw her, rejoicing yet timorous before that which was presently to come to pass; and whether it was a pallor that sometimes crossed her face, or a sudden glow as of some warm and Venetian underpainting or else a smiling, happy lassitude infinitely moving in its appeal, all spoke of the pledge that had been given and taken between us. Quite past telling was the peace this pledge brought to me. I was, after all, to begin anew. Despite Life's mauling of my hapless self, here was a tiny white leaf preparing for the writing of a record that should supersede and obliterate my own. Deeper things than men know were seeing to that ushering, and by nothing less miraculous than a birth was I going to be delivered from the body of that haggard death. Often, as I seemed to be busily writing at our small folding table, I quite lost myself in the contemplation of this coming manumission; and day by day, looking out over Waterloo Place and the Mall, I conjured up her image--resting while Aunt Angela (who now came up from Woburn Place almost daily) dusted or swept or washed up, taking her easy walks on the Heath, sewing (though not now for herself), or doing such light work as would not tire her. Fortunately, the Social Question next door had reached the crisis of over-production in the beaten-copper market; a glut had supervened; and the making of the wooden bowls and carved porridge-sticks that are designed for oppressed serfs and sold at a high price to the amateurs of the Difficult Life, caused less disturbance to our panels and pictures. The whooping child too had gone.